Minimum moves to lindy hop?

So, say you're an absolute lindy hop beginner, and you want to develop a repertoire of basic moves, to get you through a dance. What are, in your opinion, the can't-miss moves that can get a beginner up and moving, and quickly?

Oh yeah, and, while you're at it, what are some cool things a non-beginner can do to stay interested while the beginner does just the basics?

Hmm... Swingout from open and close, Circle, Swingouts with inside turn, outside turn and texas tommy. Side by side charleston, jig kicks, kick the dog and tuck turn. All eight count patterns.

While dancing with a beginner you can do a lot of foot syncopations.

How do you rest and stop spinning around constantly? :lol:
I guess Charleston and Jig Walks?
What's the best resting step in Lindy? (ex. maybe you need to stop and get your bearings)

There's not much spinning in the moves mentioned above. The exception is tuck turn, which have one or two spins. To catch up when behind or slow down, you can use circle. Or you can add moves like sugar push and change of places. The six count versions of the two latter are suitable, since six count doesn't mean any hurrying to catch up. Besides that, jig kicks and side by side charleston and kick the dog, as well as the circle slows things down a bit.

The reason I didn't mention any six count patterns to begin with is that it can be quite confusing for a beginner to change between six count and eight count. In the beginning it's much more comfortable to stay in sync with the eight counts of the music.

With more advanced dancers, I consider all of the basic syllabus moves on eight counts in sync with the music calming down. After being 'out there' with fancy stuff, playing around and mixing six, eight and other counts, going back to the good old swingout is taking it back to zero again.

I compare it to the way movies are buit up, increasing the tension and building up to a cllimax before taking it back again so that the audience/partner can breath and relax a bit.

Swing out from closed
Swing out from open
Lindy Circle
Side by Side Charleston
Tuck Turn (six count)
Left and Right Side passes (six count)

This is the bare minimum in my opinion to get by as a leader or a follower and be able to easily dance a whole song. Now there are a bunch of additional moves or variations I would recommend a dancer learning, but this is the list of begining vocabulary I've found after a decade that produces the competent dancers the fastest.

As to confusing dancers with six and eight counts, to quote Dawn Hampton "The only count I know in swing is Count Basie." If they learn to lead and follow the counts don't matter, the faster they get used to dancing the moves to the music the more comfortable they will be with the polyrhythms used in Swing.

d nice said:

As to confusing dancers with six and eight counts, to quote Dawn Hampton "The only count I know in swing is Count Basie." If they learn to lead and follow the counts don't matter, the faster they get used to dancing the moves to the music the more comfortable they will be with the polyrhythms used in Swing.

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:lol: :lol: Classic! 8)

I think it's also essential to know the Pie Wagon Slingshot with a Reverse Street Cleaner. It's a 237 count move, so it easily covers an entire song if you do it twice.

No!!! Not another exotic-named swing dance move!! :lol: I was just beginning to wrap my mind around shorty george and suzi-Q. Now this! Woe is me. :lol:

I still don't know what a shorty george or a suzy q looks like. :lol: & I'm not kiddin'. That's shim sham stuff, right? I don't know shim! I better get my shim straight.

shorty george is the jazz shim sham

suzy-q is from the jitterbug stroll

I'll answer more seriously this time... just having a few things to do from each major position felt like a good start for me. I learned a smaller group of things I can do from closed, 2-handed open, and fan position. Some of those lead to a position change. Some of them have a few variants for position changing. So, the changing of position moves turned into priority moves. I treat those positions and transitions like expansion slots. They're good for a start, and they're permanent elements of lindy hop... you can just add to them infinitely. It seemed like the best way for me to go in order to make sure I didn't get stuck with too much to do in one certain position.

That's the main thing I loved about watching lindy hop to begin with. The couple is always changing... out, closed, meeting in the middle and various other positions. Plus, they can splash what they're doing all over the floor instead of having to stay on a slot or spot.

jdavidb said:

I still don't know what a shorty george or a suzy q looks like. :lol: & I'm not kiddin'. That's shim sham stuff, right? I don't know shim! I better get my shim straight.

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Shorty George is usually done walking forward. While walking the feet go and point straight forward, the knees are realy bent and go together from side to side. Often done while pointing downwards with one hand and down to the side with the others.

Suzy Q is done sideways or rotating around the front foot. It's done with bent knees and one foot forward, and I think about evenly distributed weight. It's two steps, the first is from a position with both knees and feet pointing inward and forward. From this position the frontmost foot is twisted outwards on the heel, but with the whole foot on the floor, while the rear foot is moved a little bit out to the side while also twisting to end up pointing outwards. The second part of the step the front foot is moved after the rear foot, and both foot are twisted inwards again. The rear foot twists on the ball of the foot. To rotate around the front foot, simply don't move it on the second part of the step.

The sideays motion is used in Jitterbug stroll. Circling can be done in open position with the guy standing in place and only rotating to face the girl that is circling him doing something similar, kick ball changes or whatever she feels like.

Side passes - the same as done in WCS?

I don't think I know what a lindy circle is.

Spitfire said:

Side passes - the same as done in WCS?

I don't think I know what a lindy circle is.

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I actually have not done any side passes in ECS nor seen them done. I'm sure it must exist, though.

I was first taught the lindy circle as the "Lindy Return". And it is one of the basic must-learn moves in Lindy, though apparently it's mainly just an extra fancy move in WCS.

I'll describe it as we do it in WCS class:
8-count move. Start off doing a whip, but instead of sending her back out at 5, you hold onto her in closed position and rotate rapidly to your right on 5 6 taking her with you -- you should be able to rotate 360 degrees in those two steps and you are only taking two steps. Then on 7&8 you triple-step back in closed position with both of you doing a side-together-side. Think of which direction you'd be facing at the end of count 5 and that's the direction you should be facing at the end of the move, at 90 degrees off from the slot.

We're usually taught to do a nice leisurely move after that rapid rotation, such as a tuck turn.

DWise1 said:

Spitfire said:

Side passes - the same as done in WCS?

I don't think I know what a lindy circle is.

Click to expand...

I actually have not done any side passes in ECS nor seen them done. I'm sure it must exist, though.

I was first taught the lindy circle as the "Lindy Return". And it is one of the basic must-learn moves in Lindy, though apparently it's mainly just an extra fancy move in WCS.

I'll describe it as we do it in WCS class:
8-count move. Start off doing a whip, but instead of sending her back out at 5, you hold onto her in closed position and rotate rapidly to your right on 5 6 taking her with you -- you should be able to rotate 360 degrees in those two steps and you are only taking two steps. Then on 7&8 you triple-step back in closed position with both of you doing a side-together-side. Think of which direction you'd be facing at the end of count 5 and that's the direction you should be facing at the end of the move, at 90 degrees off from the slot.

We're usually taught to do a nice leisurely move after that rapid rotation, such as a tuck turn.

Click to expand...

Ok yes, I'm familiar with that one; just didn't know the term. I have occasionally used this in WCS following it up by leading the follower out to an open position.